The Knights of Columbus is a global Catholic fraternal service order founded by Blessed Michael J. McGivney. Membership is limited to practicing Catholic men. It is led by Patrick E. Kelly, the order's 14th Supreme Knight.
The Reconquista or the reconquest of al-Andalus was a series of military and cultural campaigns that European Christian kingdoms waged against the Muslim kingdoms following the Muslim conquest of the Iberian Peninsula by the Umayyad Caliphate, culminating in the reign of the Catholic Monarchs of Spain. The beginning of the Reconquista is traditionally dated to the Battle of Covadonga, in which an Asturian army achieved the first Christian victory over the forces of the Umayyad Caliphate since the beginning of the military invasion. The Reconquista ended in 1492 with the fall of the Nasrid kingdom of Granada to the Catholic Monarchs.
The term Moor is an exonym first used by Christian Europeans to designate the Muslim populations of the Maghreb, al-Andalus, Sicily and Malta during the Middle Ages. Moors are not a single, distinct or self-defined people. The 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica observed that the term had "no real ethnological value." Europeans of the Middle Ages and the early modern period variously applied the name to Arabs, Berbers, and Muslim Europeans.
The Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa, known in Islamic history as the Battle of Al-Uqab, took place on 16 July 1212 and was an important turning point in the Reconquista and the medieval history of Spain. The Christian forces of King Alfonso VIII of Castile, were joined by the armies of his rivals, Sancho VII of Navarre and Peter II of Aragon, in battle against the Almohad Muslim rulers of the southern half of the Iberian Peninsula. The caliph al-Nasir led the Almohad army, made up of people from all over the Almohad Caliphate.
A military order is a Christian religious society of knights. The original military orders were the Knights Templar, the Knights Hospitaller, the Order of the Holy Sepulchre, the Order of Saint James, the Order of Calatrava, and the Teutonic Knights. They arose in the Middle Ages in association with the Crusades, in the Holy Land, the Baltics, and the Iberian peninsula; their members being dedicated to the protection of pilgrims and Christians, as well as the defence of the Crusader states. They are the predecessors of chivalric orders.
An alcázar, from Arabic al-Qasr, is a type of Islamic castle or palace in Spain built during Muslim rule between the 8th and 15th centuries. They functioned as homes and regional capitals for governmental figures throughout the Umayyad caliphate and later for Christian rulers following the Iberian Reconquista. The term alcázar is also used for many medieval castles built by Christians on earlier Roman, Visigothic or Islamic fortifications and is frequently used as a synonym for castillo or castle. In Latin America there are also several colonial palaces called alcázars.
The Alhambra Decree was an edict issued on 31 March 1492, by the joint Catholic Monarchs of Spain ordering the expulsion of practising Jews from the Crowns of Castile and Aragon and its territories and possessions by 31 July of that year. The primary purpose was to eliminate the influence of practising Jews on Spain's large formerly-Jewish converso New Christian population, to ensure the latter and their descendants did not revert to Judaism. Over half of Spain's Jews had converted as a result of the religious persecution and pogroms which occurred in 1391. Due to continuing attacks, around 50,000 more had converted by 1415. A further number of those remaining chose to convert to avoid expulsion. As a result of the Alhambra decree and persecution in the years leading up to the expulsion of Spain's estimated 300,000 Jewish origin population, a total of over 200,000 had converted to Roman Catholicism in order to remain in Spain, and between 40,000 and 100,000 remained Jewish and suffered expulsion. An unknown number of the expelled eventually succumbed to the pressures of life in exile away from formerly-Jewish relatives and networks back in Spain, and so converted to Roman Catholicism to be allowed to return in the years following expulsion.:17
The Order of Santiago is a religious and military order founded in the 12th century. It owes its name to the patron saint of Spain, Santiago. Its initial objective was to protect the pilgrims on the Way of St. James, to defend Christendom and to remove the Muslim Moors from the Iberian Peninsula with the Reconquista. Entrance was not restricted to nobility of Spain exclusively, and some members have been Catholic Europeans from other parts of Europe. The Order's insignia is particularly recognisable and abundant in Western art.
This is a timeline of notable events during the period of Muslim presence in Iberia, starting with the Umayyad conquest in the 8th century.
John Edward Swift was an American judge who served as the ninth Supreme Knight of the Knights of Columbus from October 24, 1945, to August 31, 1953.
During the Middle Ages, Medieval Europe was engaged in constant warfare. European warfare during the Middle Ages was marked by a transformation in the character of warfare from antiquity, changing military tactics, and the role of cavalry and artillery. In addition to military, tactical and technological innovations during this period, chivalric military and religious ideals arose, giving motivation for engagement in the ceaseless warfare. In the Iberian Peninsula, chivalric ideals and institutions would be adopted and exercised with more fervour than anywhere else.
Agnes Mary Mansour was an American former Catholic nun, as well as a politician and public official. She is known for having been given a choice from the Vatican in 1983 to end her religious vows or to resign from her position as the director of the Michigan Department of Social Services, which required her to support and allocate public funding for abortions. The controversy involved her belief that abortion was tragic but should be legal, despite her vows as a religious and the teachings of the Catholic Church.
The siege of Jaén was the final siege on the city during the Spanish Reconquista. The siege, was carried out from 1245 through 28 February 1246 by forces of the Crown of Castile and the Order of Santiago commanded by Ferdinand III of Castile and the Grand Master of the Order of Santiago, Pelayo Pérez Correa, against a combined defending force of the local Taifa of Jaén (جيان) and the Emirate of Granada under Muhammad I. The battle resulted in a Castilian victory with the city of Jaén being handed over to the Crown of Castile and Leon after the signing of the Treaty of Jaén.
The Dramatic Order of the Knights of Khorassan or Dokeys are a side degree of the Knights of Pythias, somewhat analogous to the Shriners in Freemasonry. The Order was founded in 1894.
The history of the Knights of Columbus begins with its founding in 1882 by Father Michael J. McGivney at St. Mary's Parish in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. The Knights of Columbus was initially a mutual benefit society for a membership of practicing male Catholics. Today, it advocates for Catholic causes and provides a range of philanthropic and support services to Catholic institutions worldwide. It is also one of the world's largest insurance companies and operates the shrine to Pope John Paul II in Washington, D.C.
The political activity of the Knights of Columbus deals with the involvement of the fraternal order in efforts to influence public policy.
Robert John McClory is an American prelate of the Catholic Church who has been serving as bishop of the Diocese of Gary in Indiana since 2019.
The Battle of Cesar, in Portuguese: Batalha de Cesar, was a battle that took place on 23 March 1035, between the armies of Bermudo III, King of León, and the Moorish armies of Abu'l-Qasim, the emir of the Taifa of Seville, near the village of Cesar, Aveiro.
